


Celestial Navigation

by annabelle_lee



Category: Dreamer Trilogy - Maggie Stiefvater, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam probably keeping everyone alive as usual, Canon compliant for the most part, Declan keeping secrets, Declan's in over his head, F/M, Jordan keeping her shit together, M/M, Post-CDTH, Post-Dreamer Trilogy, Ronan keeping secrets, Ronan's got problems, long time 'til may, oh my god everything's gonna suck, oh right because me, pack a lunch, this could be okay or be a car crash or possibly both, we'll see how that works out for him, why can't they have nice things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:35:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27799327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annabelle_lee/pseuds/annabelle_lee
Summary: For the first time in his life, Ronan Lynch has discovered what it means to sleep dreamlessly, to sleep without needing to wake himself up, to sleep without the fear of what he might bring back.   But he's not sure why it's happening, or who he'll be without his dreams - or what might be taking their place in his head.Declan Lynch has almost restored order to his unassuming public life - and his much more interesting personal one - when a business associate vanishes under damning circumstances.   If Declan's going to keep himself and his brothers alive, he has to learn what really happened and what it might have to do with his younger brother's sudden inability to dream.
Relationships: Declan Lynch/Jordan Hennessy, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	1. A Delicate Sin

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a NaNo exercise in pacing, but ended up as something that's been just awesome to plot out while we wait for MI. As for timing, I've set this after the events of TDT and tried to keep it canon-compliant up to and through what we know happened in CDTH; unless I develop some crazy astral projection capabilities, I bet a million dollars it's gonna diverge from canon after that. :) 
> 
> Blue, Gansey, Henry, and Hennessy will most definitely be materializing in subsequent chapters. Aiming for a chapter every five days to a week.
> 
> I can't deal with Bryde, so I'm going to ignore that whole...thing. Bryde apologists, I'm sorry, I know you're out there. 
> 
> This is unbeta'd, so if you see any typos or continuity errors, *please* point them out - I'd be so grateful.

The skin under his hands was warm and incredibly pleasant to touch. The skin under his lips was satiny, a marvelous dark coffee color, so rich he could taste it on his tongue --

Declan Lynch was asleep, and he knew it, because he was dreaming. It was a fact he could recognize even in the deepest and most lucid of dreams, and he liked that. It was also, on the surface, the dullest of all possible Lynch talents, and he liked that, too. Telling the difference between dreams and reality wasn’t the most spectacular manifestation of the family ability, but it was undeniably one of the most useful. When you couldn’t sense the difference between awake and asleep, the world became a _much_ more dangerous place, and it was already lethal enough for the Lynches.

 _Yes, and that’s all very interesting,_ his working brain said, chiding his dreaming body, _but there_ is _skin under your hands, actually. You’re not conjuring this all by your lonesome._

Now that he knew where he was, Declan wanted to stay in the dream. He wanted more time with this body, so perfectly realized under his touch that he could feel the flutter and jump of a pulse at wrists and throat, see the faintest gold threads in that halo of hair; he wanted to find out what was going to happen when he slid his hands across those delicate, winged shoulder blades --

Declan Lynch was awake. He had been asleep, dreaming, and now he was awake, and that was another particular talent that belonged to him and him alone among the Lynch brothers. He dropped back into consciousness the way people entered stores or exited cars or turned on lights or closed windows: all of him, all at once, efficiently. Not for him the disembodied, slow return that left Ronan boneless and floating above himself for minutes after waking; not for him the dreamy, happy, meandering rumination over a thought or feeling or whatever he happened to be holding in his hands when he awoke, like Matthew. No, Declan returned to the world in a single piece, immediately, eyes open, ready to run.

He inventoried his surroundings. The white-box ceiling of his model-home bedroom in his expensively bland Alexandria townhouse. _Yes._

Tasteful, neutral sheets under and over him, high thread count bunched in his hands. _Correct._

Late November, a DC morning, light grey sky where he’d left it. _All right._

Phone on nightstand, watch on nightstand, wallet on nightstand. _Good._

Nightstand drawer open, just a crack. _Less good._

Jordan Hennessy, neither present nor accounted for. _Potentially bad._ It had been her skin he was touching in the dream. 

Before deciding on his next emotion, Declan reached out a hand without looking, feeling for any clue as to how long he’d been there alone. The pillow was cool, but under the duvet, the tasteful, neutral sheets were warm. She was in the house. The claws in his spine retracted, and Declan closed his eyes again, shoving down the question mark of the open drawer and willing his body to return to where it had been in the dream, poised on one elbow over her and about to indulge himself in ways he so rarely did when awake. 

_All that glorious skin,_ his brain prompted. 

“You woke up,” came a voice from the door. “Thought I could steal a march on you, but the espresso machine got in my way.”

“Ah, well, you tried,” he said, eyes still shut, but there was the beginning of a smile on his face. He heard the faint chink of a cup on a saucer, felt the heavy duvet pulled back and the mattress shift as she slid in next to him, smelled the heady scent of chypre, and somewhere above that, the perfume of coffee. 

Declan opened his eyes; Jordan was there. 

“Hello.” Her voice was caramel; he could lick it off her lips. 

“I dreamed there was coffee,” he said, looking at her from under his lashes. 

“Might be, if you ask nicely.” Her hand, under the duvet, slid down his arm and over his hip.

“I dreamed there was a girl in my bed.”

“Could be, if you play your cards right.” Warm palm, cool fingertips.

“I dreamed I had everything I wanted.”

“Sounds like you should keep dreaming then.” Teeth biting gently into his shoulder.

He extended his other arm across the bed in a luxurious stretch, and pushed the nightstand drawer closed with a casual, accidental bump of his knuckles. 

“I woke up and found it was true.” 

“You’re shameless, Declan Lynch.” Jordan’s laugh was an invitation. 

Declan accepted, with pleasure.

  
  


******

Ronan Lynch was asleep, and he didn’t know it, because he wasn’t dreaming. Sprawled face down on the generous bed, long arms reaching almost edge to edge, he was perfectly still. Serene. Becalmed. The gorgeous snarl of black ink covering his back and shoulders looked less like armor and more like art. Ronan slept restlessly at the best of times; he dreamt joy and anger and sorrow and curiosity and hope, and those weren’t emotions that gave a dreamer much peace.

 _Am I still alive,_ his motionless body asked his dreamless brain, and there was no answer for so long that eventually the uncanny lack of movement forced his body to light a tiny, brutal, panicked spark in the dark of his consciousness. 

Ronan Lynch was awake, but barely. He came to bit by bit, cautiously trying to make sense of the change from dark to light, what his head was resting on (the sheets), what time it was (early morning, by the sky outside), what he’d been dreaming (nothing there), where he was (his bed, the Barns, Singer’s Falls, Virginia, the United States, the world). 

The air felt cool; after a minute he deduced this was because the weight on his feet had to be the blankets, pushed down to the bottom of the bed in the night. Hazily, he thought about rolling over on his back, and then postponed the idea for another few minutes as he tried to tie his body back to his brain. Usually, this was what happened after dreaming, the struggle to inhabit his arms and legs and chest and mind again, but now, even though he recognized the languor, he couldn’t recall the dream that had caused it. 

There had been no dream, he realized. 

He told his fingers and hands to obey, and they did, curling slowly in towards themselves. Ronan exhaled away the brief panic that always came with the paralysis, the fear that he would have left some important part of himself behind - and worked up to his arms, which he stretched up overhead in a sinuous motion like a swimmer. 

He’d felt heartbreak, he’d been holding something in his - but no. _No?_

No, because there had been no dream. 

He was remembering the feeling of other dreams, maybe - and for a moment, his palms tingled with anxiety, because he'd felt his hands on...what? -- but _no,_ _for real,_ his brain told him, _get your shit together, there was no dream._

Just sleep. 

Ronan thought about that while the rest of him came back together. He tried, again, to turn over and found his body willing to do what he told it this time; with a delicious flex of muscles he pushed himself onto his back and reached for the down comforter. He studied the sloping plaster ceiling above him. 

_It was just sleep,_ he told himself. 

_Then why did it take so fucking long to move,_ asked another, smaller part of his brain.

There was a flash of light at the edge of his vision, and he sat up defensively.

“Parrish. God. Say something next time. ”

Adam Parrish sat in the ratty chair in the far corner of the room, a book in his hands; the flash had been the metal edge of his dreamt watch, the watch Ronan had given him, picking up the grey morning sky outside the windows. His expression was unreadable. 

“How long was I asleep?” He rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, willing them to focus, and then looked at Adam again.

The chair was empty. 


	2. Time's A River

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘what’s going on’ is a stupid question for people like us,” Jordan answered. “You’d tell me if you wanted to talk about it, and you’d lie if I asked. So. Can’t really be arsed.”  
> Declan considered this. Any one of the Ashleys would have delivered this with full-throated bitterness; Jordan merely sounded amused.  
> “Anyway, you’ve got ‘my brother is fucking me up’ all over your face. It’s not hard to guess.”  
> “That’s not especially comforting to hear,” he replied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sixty five thousand words of outline...so this chapter was an exercise in sacrifice, but here we are (agonized groan). Thank you to everyone who had thoughts and kudos, they're deeply appreciated...esp while I reorg this into being readable. 
> 
> I'm *so* sorry about the formatting - let me know what's especially fucked up and I'll fix it ASAP. Y'all are the best.

_ friends I had from younger days _

_ mostly have been washed away _

_ time's a river so they say, _

_ and then you drown, _

_ and then you drown _

  * _River From The Sky; The Weepies_



_“Can you be there or not?”_

Even when deeply annoyed, Declan Lynch managed to sound like he was in the middle of delivering the evening news. It was a voice made for broadcast. For public radio, for expensive cable subscriptions, for civil war documentaries, for anything that needed its rough edges sanded off. People told Declan that he could charm birds from trees or sell ice to Eskimos  or take candy from babies, and they all seemed impressed about it. Ronan just thought it was one more way Declan lied. 

Right now, the caring news anchor voice was tinny, in no small part because of the distance between Ronan and Ronan’s phone, five feet away on the dining table where he’d shoved it after answering. He looked at the screen, which said DBAG LYNCH above a picture of a tie knotted into a noose, and that showed the call had been going on four minutes.  Most of this had been Declan, talking. The rest had been Ronan, silent.  He wondered how long Declan would stay on the line if he hung up. 

_ Ronan. _ ” Declan said. He’d finally dropped the news anchor voice; now he just sounded exasperated.  __

Ronan smiled thinly -  _ victory _ \- and picked up the phone. 

“Yeah.”

“Yes, as in you can be there? Or yes, as in you heard  _ any  _ of what I just said? I’ve been  _ talking to you  _ this whole time.”

And every second’s been a joy,” Ronan replied, “but run along and play.”

There was a long silence.

“I’ll text you the address.” The news anchor voice had returned. “We need to be there at eight.” Then there was more silence, which meant Declan had hung up.

_ At eight _ . Declan never said he’d be somewhere  _ around _ or  _ by _ a time. He parceled out the hours of his day into exact, separate components, all the better to add up how he was using it, to see if he could  _ calendar things more efficiently _ , if he could  _ create bandwidth somewhere.  _ When you were Declan, time was an immutable object. Ronan tried to imagine life at the Barns measured like this; it felt impossible. 

His phone buzzed.  _ 3328 N St NW.  _

Ronan didn’t know DC very well - he was happy to stay away from his brother’s turf - but he thought this was somewhere in a rich-person part of the city. 

Another buzz.  _ 8pm. Stay outside. _

He let his eyes unfocus. It was going to be a two hour drive, closer to three in beltway traffic. Objectively, that was inconvenient.  _ Yeah, cause you’re so busy here, _ said the small, hateful voice in his head.  _ Tonight and every other night. _

He tugged at his bracelets. The lemon-polish-and-woodsmoke scent of the farmhouse was usually comforting in its familiarity; now it seemed oppressive. The Barns smelled like grass and thunderstorm ozone in the summer, thawed earth and animals in the spring. In the fall, damp leaves and boxwood, and in the winter, it smelled like the metallic cold of snow, but underneath all of those, all the time, lemon polish and woodsmoke. Maybe his father had dreamed it that way.

Inside, the dining room was dim. Outside, the midday light outside was gloomy, barely better than evening. Loneliness felt like a living thing inside him.

Ronan put his head in his hands and thought of Adam, and how plausible it had seemed that he was there in the bedroom this morning, and how Ronan’s heart had almost exploded out of his chest at the sight. Then, because that felt like it was going to lead to other, worse thoughts, he frogmarched his mind in a different direction.  _ The calendar.  _ He refocused his eyes on the calendar that was hanging just inside the kitchen door. His pride wouldn’t let him actually cross out the days, but he knew exactly how many were left. It had been two months, and then five weeks, and then two weeks, and now it was five days and thirteen hours. And then things would be more normal; there would be a reason to turn lights on, there would be shit he wanted to do again, Adam would be home, he’d see Gansey and Sargent, and he would hear something besides his own goddamn thoughts and things would be all right again. He would be all right. He’d talk to Adam about visiting each other more, maybe, and about the dreamlessness or whatever the fuck was happening in brain, he promised himself. 

This wasn’t exactly a plan, but if you squinted it was plan-adjacent, so he felt a little better. 

The phone buzzed again.  _ Tell me you copy. _

In the meantime, there was Declan. Whatever he’d asked Ronan to show up for had to be something Declan couldn’t do without him, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked, and  _ that _ meant it was either about business or Matthew, and if it was Matthew he would have just said it, so --

So it was business. 

Ronan had complicated feelings about Declan’s involvement in Niall Lynch’s business. On the one hand, Ronan would have strongly preferred to let Declan deal in whatever otherworldly underground magical mystery shit he felt like and leave Ronan out of it entirely; on the rare occasions Ronan had been present, it was either eye-crossingly boring or unbelievably bloody, sometimes both. 

On the other hand, their father’s death had left Declan responsible for a long list of dangerous clients, all of whom were dissatisfied in individually hideous and potentially homicidal ways, and so far Declan had managed to keep them on  _ the right side of the balance sheet _ (a prime Declanism), and more importantly, well away from Ronan, Matthew, and the Barns. 

Irritation and loyalty fought it out; loyalty won. Ronan picked up his phone.

***

Declan found a bottle of wine, and then found the opener, and then left both untouched on the marble countertop as he leaned against the kitchen island and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. 

_ Ronan was such -- _

He didn’t finish the thought. It wasn’t productive. 

_ If only I -- _

He shut that one down, too.

_ Six more hours and you can fall apart for a little while. Six hours. _

What he  _ wanted _ was to fast forward to the end of the night, to get to the end of another day unmolested and alive with everyone he loved  _ also _ unmolested and alive, to sleep without a gun in the nightstand, to wake up with enough in the tank to get to the end of the next day, rinse, repeat. 

What he  _ had _ was a problem of monumental proportions and the creeping feeling he was running out of time to solve it. 

_ And then what _ , asked his restless brain.  _ If you find a way out of  _ this  _ nightmare scenario, if you actually manage to eel your way out of this alive, what about the next mess? And the next one? And the next one? What about everything after that, hmm? Cause there’s gonna be a next one, and you know it, the fun never stops for Declan Lynch -- _

“It seems a little early, but I’m drinking if you’re pouring.” His face composed itself automatically, before he even lifted his hand from his eyes. Jordan stood on the other side of the kitchen island; he’d been so deep in his mental quicksand that he hadn’t heard her come in. She wore an old button down shirt of his that revealed a tantalizing amount of throat and collarbone, and her hair was pulled up into an enormous topknot, and she had gold paint all over her hands. Her expression was just this side of a question. 

“It’s five o’clock somewhere,” was all he said. 

“Don’t be banal. 

“All right, then, this is a very late lunch.”

“Much better. I’ll join you,” she said, and she sat down at the countertop and stretched her arms out over the marble, examining the paint smears. He poured two glasses, passed her one, ignored his, and went back to leaning against the island with his hand over his eyes. A full minute went by.

“Are you always this circumspect?” asked Declan eventually. 

“I am.”

“And why is that?”

“Because ‘what’s going on’ is a stupid question for people like us,” Jordan answered. “You’d tell me if you wanted to talk about it, and you’d lie if I asked. So. Can’t really be arsed.”

Declan considered this. Any one of the Ashleys would have delivered this with full-throated bitterness; Jordan merely sounded amused.

“Anyway, you’ve got ‘my brother is fucking me up’ all over your face. It’s not hard to guess.”

“That’s not especially comforting to hear,” he replied.

“Which part?”

“Any of it.”

They regarded each other speculatively across the countertop. She took a sip of wine, and then reached over with one gold finger and pressed it lightly, experimentally, into his forearm. 

“I could have said ‘It’s not hard  _ for me _ to guess,’ but I didn’t know if that would make you feel better or worse.” She slid her finger down his arm over the back of his hand, tapping gently on his knuckles. 

He looked at her, and opened his mouth to tell her that he liked how it sounded even if he didn’t know how it made him feel, either, but what came out was “I have a business meeting tonight. I asked Ronan to come with.” 

with

_ Tap, tap.  _ Her finger ghosted over an old scrape. 

“It’ll take about an hour. Did you have plans later?” He kept his face expectation-free.

Jordan examined his hands a moment longer and then raised her eyes to his, a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. “Depends on what condition you’re in after your meeting, I guess. What about Ronan?” 

“Ronan’s not staying,” Declan said firmly. 

“I see,” she replied, and now the smile was in her voice, too. “Well. In that case, you should stay sharp. I’ll drink the rest of your wine." 

***

7:54pm, and it felt like midnight. 

From across the street, Declan studied the house at 3328 N St. It was a textbook example of patrician Washington sensibility and wealth on a block that was full of them; four stories of rosy, weathered brick, miles of tasteful ironwork, and tall, elegant windows that allowed glimpses of high ceilings, marble fireplaces, and chandeliers that cost more than Declan’s Volvo. It was the sort of house he’d once imagined he might live in, back when he thought his life might include a title like  _ Congressman _ or  _ Senator. _

He glanced at his watch. 7:55. Even the streetlights in this part of town were pretty, casting a soft glow over some of the sidewalk and leaving the rest in convenient, attractive shadows; he stood back in one of these now, eyeing the beautiful house while he waited to see if Ronan would show. He could handle the meeting solo. If he had to. 

“The fuck are we doing here?” came a voice from Declan’s left; Ronan had materialized out of the darkness, looking very much  _ of  _ the darkness in head to toe black and an expression that matched. Irritation and relief rippled down Declan’s spine; he noted both emotions, then immediately shoved them back down behind his ribs somewhere and mentally sat on them. 

“Ronan. Thank you for coming.” His voice sounded mercifully normal.

“Thank you for coming,” his brother mimicked in a higher pitch. “That was a. Three. Hour Drive. This better be fucking necessary.” 

“Otherwise I can see you’re really busy,” Declan snapped, and Ronan flinched. _ What did I just hit, _ he thought uneasily.  _ Jesus Mary, please no landmines tonight.  _

Ronan narrowed his eyes, daring Declan to say something. Declan, who knew better, flicked an invisible piece of lint off his sleeve and waited. 

“Whatever,” said Ronan abruptly. “Get on with your bullshit.”

_ Better. Stay like that.  _

Normally, Declan did everything he could to avoid being seen with his dark and terrifying younger brother; for one thing, Ronan Lynch could sear himself on one’s memory in a way that was definitely bad for business; for another, Declan knew Ronan was an effective threat precisely  _ because _ he was deployed so rarely - and tonight, Declan needed a weapon.

He took a deep breath through his nose and forced himself to focus. “Here’s the situation. The person I’m - we’re - meeting with is someone I need to be on good terms with - he’s very influential in the market.”

“Is this another cleanup job?” Ronan asked, meaning _just_ _how badly did our father screw this guy?_

“No,” said Declan, looking at his watch again, then back up at the house. “This is a client of mine. Nothing involving Dad.” 

He could tell Ronan would chew on that one for a while.  _ We used to be better at hiding our thoughts, _ he realized.  _ When did we get so careless? _

“I don’t need you to  _ do _ anything,” Declan continued, “I just need you to be - yourself - while we’re in there.” 

One of Ronan’s brows rose slightly. “That’s a fucking first.” 

Declan ignored this. “All we’re here to do is talk to this guy. Actually,  _ I’m _ going to talk, you’re going to say nothing. Did you bring a gun?”

His brother’s eyes widened fractionally.

“Don’t look at me like that; they’ll search us when we go in and I’d prefer not to give the impression that we’re going to make trouble. Are you carrying a weapon or not?”

Ronan shook his head once, slowly, and turned back to study the house across the street with new interest.  “Remember. Nothing out of you. Not a fucking word unless I ask you a direct question. Which I won’t be doing. Say you understand.”

Underneath the black leather jacket, Ronan Lynch relaxed his shoulders, a casually threatening movement that added an inch to his already considerable height.  “Yeah. Yes. I heard you the first time. Asshole,” he murmured.  Declan felt possibility prick his fingertips. Maybe this would work. Maybe it would get him an answer, or at least close enough, and then he’d be able to --

Across the street, a door opened. 

Underneath the expensive grey suit, Declan Lynch straightened his spine, arranged his face, and prepared to lie for his life.


End file.
